Nan Que slept soundly despite his unease, not waking until afternoon.
Zhang Zhe was speechless. While chaos reigned outside—with L. Lan from Yue Yin Lou being ordered to suspend broadcasting and official announcements being posted—various secondary creation accounts were editing clips that spread like wildfire. Every hall in both Si Ji and Yue Yin Lou had people asking questions, speculating whether the two halls were about to clash, with last night’s incident being just a “Sarajevo” event. Everyone was waiting to see when the charge would sound.
He had no idea how this kid could sleep so soundly without a care.
Si Ji Casual Chat Group (Four Official Halls):
Lights Off: Has the person not joined the group yet? The newcomer?
Qi Ji: Yeah, he just joined a few days ago and hasn’t even taken the hall assessment yet.
Gu Zi: My feed is flooded with his secondary creations from last night. What incredible luck!
Di Ting: Luck? If you’d heard how Xue Shan scolded him last night, you wouldn’t be envious.
Gu Zi: Hahaha, Xue Shan actually yelled at him? That’s totally in character! Did he make the kid cry?
Lights Off: With that foul mouth of Xue Shan’s, his own saliva could poison him. Hope he doesn’t scare the newbie into quitting outright.
Di Ting: Doesn’t seem like it. His composure was pretty solid, right? @Yin He
Yin He: Yeah, you can tell just from the recording. He’s promising material.
Lights Off: Oh~ Promising material @Xiao
Gu Zi: Oh~ Promising material @Xiao
Xiao: ……Cut it out.
Yin He: The situation seems manageable for now. You can joke about it during your streams, but don’t go too far. Both sides are still communicating and might collaborate on some programs.
Jiu Yue: Really? I kept running into L family members while gaming today. So awkward.
He: Same here. Before, we could at least greet each other, but today I didn’t even dare lift my head—just hung up immediately.
Gu Zi: I heard that L. Lan has suspended broadcasting. Our newbie just started streaming yesterday, right? What did the company say? Should he suspend too?
Yin He: Yeah, suspend for now.
Lights Off: Rough.
Gu Zi: Rough.
Jiu Yue: Rough.
Que: So rough, I almost want to go to the Training Camp and send him some gifts.
Nan Que was actually pleased when he received the suspension notice from Hall Manager Yanmai.
He’d been worrying about how to handle tonight’s stream if he had to go live, so he was relieved he didn’t have to broadcast at all.
Nan Que took a look inside the Training Camp hall. The public chat was filled with visitors asking about last night’s incident. The singers in the mic queue took turns singing, thanked their donors after performing, then muted their mics without daring to say another word, afraid of stirring up trouble.
Training Camp Casual Chat Group:
Wu: I’m a bit scared to queue up now.
Man Zi: Same.
Qing Chen: Same.
Sha Zi: Same.
Lin Lang: @Brother Wu, stop chatting. It’s your turn in the mic queue.
Qing Chen: Where’s Nan Que? @Nan Que, come out so I can vent.
Man Zi: There are over two thousand people in the hall, and I’ve been hanging on the tree for two shifts already.
Qing Chen: Can’t help it. We’ve got the traffic but no donations—everyone’s just here for the show.
Nan Que: (Kowtowing cat emoji)
Nan Que: The kid’s already been scolded and is now suspended. Hang in there, brothers.
Qing Chen: Did President Xue talk to you? Uh, he’s not tearing up your contract, is he?
Qing Chen was worried. He’d been in the hall for a while and had attended several weekly meetings after becoming a regular. President Xue might seem like a careless Gen Z CEO, but he was actually ruthless in speech and action—Qing Chen had been reduced to tears by him before.
Nan Que: No, no, but we’ll have to wait and see how things develop.
Qing Chen: That’s good then. You rest up for now. We brothers can hold out a bit longer.
Sha Zi: Yeah, the situation’s too heated right now. Take care of yourself.
Nan Que: (Nodding dog emoji)
Sorry, sorry.
Nan Que silently bowed to his brothers, then used his alternate account to gift a song list to everyone in the hall as “protection fee” before exiting with a clear conscience.
Unable to schedule any shifts, he found himself bored with nothing to do. He logged into his alternate account and entered Xiao’s livestream, pulling out his drawing tablet to continue illustrating for him.
Xiao’s livestream never lacked energy – he was like a natural-born master of stream control. Even with the same streaming routine, he made it incredibly engaging.
He faithfully covered ten songs daily, each performed with genuine dedication and that distinctive “Xiao-style” vocal delivery.
Every song request came with specific requirements that he meticulously followed. After singing, he would ask the requester if they were satisfied, offering to re-sing if they weren’t.
Occasionally, negative comments would scroll across the public chat. Unless they were particularly harsh, Xiao would simply ignore them without response, focusing entirely on his dedicated fans.
Or rather…
Nan Que set down his pen, rotating his stiff neck, and sent Xiao a “Sea of Flowers” gift.
[Sudden Wealth gifted X. Xiao Sea of Flowers (2000 diamonds)]
“Thank you Sudden Wealth! Wishing Sudden Wealth big sister all her dreams come true and daily wealth~ Also wishing all Little Feathers sudden wealth – hope I get some too, haha!”
Xiao’s attention was reserved for fans who sent gifts.
This streaming approach provided big spenders with great satisfaction, but left companion fans feeling neglected.
It wasn’t that he completely disregarded them, but in a stream with one to two thousand viewers, when lower-level fans who didn’t gift much tried to chat in public comments, Xiao rarely responded.
These fans would renew their fan badges daily, sending intimacy gifts, gradually leveling up their fan group ranks through consistent support – they were genuine companion fans.
Having lurked in the fan group for several days, Nan Que had noticed several regular viewers who used to enthusiastically spam comments when they first joined had now become silent observers.
Lately, Xiao’s streaming vibe felt somewhat tense. Every segment proceeded flawlessly, transitions were smooth, even PK battles were entertaining.
Yet he wasn’t gaining new fans.
Or rather, while new fans kept joining, others kept leaving, resulting in an unstable, transient fanbase.
This wasn’t good news for a VTuber.
Nan Que opened Xiao’s profile – the follower count remained stagnant at 68,000.
Typically, rising streamers with long daily broadcasts would see steady follower growth, not complete stagnation.
Nan Que·career-focused fan·, having just faced his own streaming career collapse, was now worrying about others.
Gnawing on his pen while drawing and contemplating, Nan Que realized Xiao’s fundamental problem was lack of relatability.
To use online gaming as an analogy: many games are free-to-play with no barriers – anyone with equipment can play. These games profit through in-app purchases of items, character skins, and in-game privileges, earning substantial revenue.
Wealthy players spend money in games not just for personal advancement, but also because of the vast free user base. Free users don’t pay, but they serve as companions and atmosphere builders for paying users. Their admiration, praise, and comparative status provide emotional value to paying users.
For streamers, regular viewers form their popularity base. The more high-quality regular viewers they have, the better the atmosphere in the livestream room becomes, making it easier for big spenders to stay.
Xiao’s current problem is that he neglects the needs of regular viewers, focusing solely on providing emotional value to big spenders. This easily leads to burnout, the dispersal of livestream popularity, and big spenders finding it less interesting and visiting less frequently.
However, this is also his streaming strength – because there are returns, fans are willing to invest generously, with strong willingness to gift and high loyalty.
If he were just a small streamer, he could sustain this. Maintaining highly loyal paying users would be enough for him to make a living.
But how could that be possible?
A rising streamer who broadcasts over ten hours daily would never want to remain stagnant.
Nan Que didn’t know whether this was good or bad. If he were a fan, he would really like such a streamer.
But now being a streamer himself, he clearly understood how much effort was required behind the scenes. Behind the long streaming hours lay even longer periods of emotional adjustment. When you only output without input, human emotions will eventually snap.
What to do? He felt a bit heartached.
If he wanted to break this cycle, he needed to find another emotional anchor – on one hand retaining fans accustomed to this streaming style who were willing to gift, while on the other hand catering to regular viewers’ tastes to attract new fans and make audiences actively join in because of the stories.
Then there was only one solution –
Form a streaming partnership.